Parent seminar: Managing stress and anxiety

A online program is helping Blackfriars better manage students’ wellbeing and mental health.

Blackfriars is now in its second year of Wellio – a digital platform to proactively improve the wellbeing of our Secondary students and equip parents and caregivers with new skills to support their sons.

“The Wellio program supports students in improving their sleep, managing social media use, building healthy relationships, improving physical wellbeing and reducing anxiety and also allows parents to be involved,” Blackfriars Director of Wellbeing Anthea Osborne said.

“The past few years have put pressure on everyone, and we believe helping students build strong mental habits is a crucial part of our wellbeing program.”

The first Wellio Parent Webinar – Managing Stress and Anxiety – will be held tomorrow evening (Thursday 14 March) from 6pm (Adelaide time).

“This webinar unpacks the tools you have to support your child when they are feeling overwhelmed,” Ms Osborne said. 

The webinar will include:

• Good anxiety vs bad anxiety – discussing how stress can sometimes be good and what you can do when your child’s stress becomes harmful anxiety.

• The thinking feeling connection – how thoughts turn into feelings and what you can do to ensure your child doesn’t find themselves in thinking traps.

• Techniques to manage anxiety – a toolkit of strategies that you can use to help your child manage and prevent anxiety.

Wellio also provides data which allows the school to monitor students from a wellbeing perspective.

 “So, it will actually alert us if there are boys who perhaps may … not be travelling well,” Ms Osborne said.

“We’re then able to connect them with our wellbeing and counselling staff to provide them with extra support.

“It’s a huge step forward. We’ve taken on board what the boys suggested to us, that they weren’t getting much from wellbeing journals, and found something that they can better connect with.”

Wellio sits alongside Blackfriars’ overall pastoral care and wellbeing program.

Register for tomorrow night’s webinar here. Wellio will also record the event, so please register if you cannot attend but want access to the recording.

Future webinars will cover phone addiction and social media (Term 2), healthy relationships (Term 3) and building resilience (Term 4).